A Long Winter's Nap

Yesterday's project was informative but tedious, so today I wanted to do something more fun, and to me "more fun" means "involving figurative art of some sort".  But I also wanted to put to practice some of the skills I've been learning over the past week, so I decided on structured fun.  We'll get to process in a moment, but first things first, I wanted to show off the finished project, because I'm actually quite pleased with it:

"A Long Winter's Nap", indeed.

The main thing that would make it better would be stronger,  more dynamic line-work, but since the point of this piece was working on my newly-learned color technique, I'm content to let it remain basic.

It took me a few tries to figure out what I wanted to do.  I knew I wanted to use a gradient wash in the background, and I felt like I needed a wintery theme, so I was leaning towards blue and gray.  I thought I  might do a tree of some sort, but with the small size of my sketch book, I ended up doing a pretty lady bust:

I did a light under drawing in pencil!  So fancy!

I'd still been thinking vaguely tree-related, as though I might turn hair into branches and her heart/chest into roots, but then I just sort of... went a different direction:

Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow

And then on to the wash!  Thanks to yesterday's glaze chart, I knew that to get the colors I wanted, I'd need to lay down the gray first:

Go gravity, go!

And then came the blue!  Or, rather, turquoise:

Ooo, gradient!

I got kind of frustrated because I accidentally flicked a drop of water onto the page (upper left side).  I tried to fix it, but as you can see in the next photo, it bloomed horribly and ruined the gradient.  Oh well it's still pretty.

Then it was time for a little wet-on-wet technique, which I figured would be excellent for the storm cloud:

I was SUPER correct about this, although as you can see in the next photo, it didn't stay this contained.

After that bit of triumph, I moved on to a flat wash:

Look at that big dumb splotch.  Grrr.  But I like the highlights on the cloud!

And then started glazing my brains out!

Colors, colors, everywhere.

Then there was more glazing, and some wet-on-dry, and I finished it off with some china white for the snow.  And like I said, I am quite pleased with the results.

"But Jenny O," you might wonder, "how did you find the patience for all those billions of layers?  That looks like two hours of work right there!" to which I would reply, "Very perceptive, Gentle Reader, it was about two hours of work!"  And then I would explain that I found the patience by literally walking away from my desk in between each layer, and reading my new, Christmas-gift-to-myself book.  It was a highly effective technique, and I plan to use it in the future, as well (although I will need new books...)

I think the best thing about today's piece is that finally, finally I'm starting to see how I might actually achieve the luminous-effect of watercolor that drew me to it in the first place.